Her Favorite Soda
by CollinchWe
Summary: On a hot day, Tifa and Aerith sat together and talked...


"How's it taste?"

It was a day enduring extreme thirst for the entire party. The weather scorched like embers in grates, frying them right into their bones and their eyes itched and their lungs squeezed dry. The levels of Mako contaminating the atmosphere were on records high and being alive at this specific time was sheer torture.

Resting behind a large rock, Tifa was wishing she could avoid the rest of the party for a while. She needed a break. There was a hollowness that made her feel fragile like a cracking empty shell constrained under pressure. But the current presence that shortly ignored this need- a mellow, soft voice- didn't seem to make her want to chase it away.

"Huh...?"  
She looked above and saw Aerith hovering, smiling happily with her pair of green bright orbs gleaming against the sunlight. She smelled of the rare flowers Tifa had seen somewhere around Midgar as she sat beside her, crossed legged.

"This. How's it taste?" Aerith playfully tinkered with her fingers at the bottle Tifa was indolently holding.

"Oh." Tifa scrutinised it for a second. "I-it's great. I guess Apple soda's still my favorite...if you..." Her words trailed off into an inaudible murmur, which didn't seem to perturb Aerith as she didn't probe her to finish them but instead nodded, either in agreement or acknowledgement, Tifa was not sure.

"I see. And he _knew_ that exactly." Aerith said with a chuckle.

"Knew what..? Who?"

"Cloud, silly."

Tifa turned to Aerith, who was still smiling and gazing at the skies ahead. Her hair seemed to glow strangely in bright auburn, but Tifa thought she looked beautiful and pristine that tempted her to look at her own hands which made her scowl to herself. They were scruffy, calloused and dehydrated, and she sighed at the sight of them for the third time that day.

"Hellooo...are you even listening?" Aerith chaffed. "You've been strangely staring at your hands. Are you ok?" She placed a hand on Tifa's forehead; brows knitted trying to detect any abnormal heat from her.

"I'm fine. Geez, Aerith...enlighten me where did I lose you?" Tifa took her hand with her on her lap, squeezing it gently. It provided her a kind of long-lost comfort she had some time in her life.

"Forget it." Aerith chortled, resting her head on her shoulder. "You must be very tired, aren't you? You know I'll always be there to help you, right?" With her free hand, she peeled Tifa's hand that was holding hers and caressed it. She loved and admired the demure quality, in spite of the variegated roughness of it that she couldn't quite escape from.

Tifa sneered beside her. "Give me another 2 years or so. I would probably give Barret's bad hand a twin."

Aerith turned around to catch a glimpse of Barret boasting something to Yuffie, his bad arm attached with a fire gun visibly shining from the distance. Soon enough she was shaking with laughter as she imagined Tifa with the same awkward semblance of that.

The uplifted mood was contagious and Tifa was already beaming, the pain in her eyes having gone for now. Just for now. The two of them ogled at each other for a moment, their eyes conveying their thoughts. The convoluted loneliness, pain, worries and sadness were simplified into a well of unlimited companionship. They intertwined their arms once again, while inscribing the unspoken promise within their souls, never to be erased with time.

"You know, Tifa. You shouldn't be bothered by how your hands look. Because those hands are what's protecting us, feeding us and caring for us. Without you, we'd probably have to pluck leaves from trees."

"Do you think it'd be that bad?" Tifa whispered, as if someone could hark her from that distance.

"You bet! Well, maybe in some occasions I could feed them flowers if we get sick of those greens."

Both of them burst into laughter, causing their friends behind them to yell at them to share the joke, which they naturally ignored.  
"What about Yuffie? I'm sure she knows to whip up some Wutaian food?" Tifa wondered aloud.

"It's not that...oh you know, she might drop one or two Materia in there thinking it might make the dish taste better." Tifa giggled at Aerith's jest.

"Well...if worse comes to worst, Cloud can be of some hope. He can be good at something...if he puts his mind into it. Don't you think so?"  
Aerith smiled and nodded in agreement. "But he'd need motivation to keep at it, you know."

 _Motivation, huh...  
_  
"Well, that's no problem since you're around. He could do with that."

"Hmmm... you think so?" There was an added cheerfulness in Aerith's voice, Tifa could sense. It made her skin tingle.

"Yeah." Tifa smiled at her, assumingly assuring.

"But do you think it's a coincidence that there's only one Apple soda?"

"What?"

Aerith responded with another chuckle and before she could proceed with words, Cid was already shouting at their direction to return to Highwind to resume their journey to Wutai. She got up first, releasing her arms from Tifa's, and lifting her friend from the patch of grass they had been sitting on.

"What is it, Aerith? What about the soda?"

"Don't worry about it. But I guess I'll just need to tell him my favorite too."

Tifa watched her friend leave, scurrying towards Cloud as she started for Highwind, whose eyes met hers before Aerith ebulliently greeted him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Tifa steered her eyes away and started to move to join them.  
She understood the underlying intentions from the questions asked, and yet refused to believe that he knew what was her favorite soda and all. Because how could and why would he?

 _Yeah, go tell him. I'm dead sure he'd be pleased to know...  
_


End file.
